


Paris

by ZoeWarren



Series: Postcards in Paradise [4]
Category: Death in Paradise
Genre: F/M, Gen, Paris (City), Postcards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-18
Updated: 2015-05-18
Packaged: 2018-03-31 04:28:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3964396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeWarren/pseuds/ZoeWarren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard accepted the news that he was being transferred to France with as much good grace as he could muster. At least the weather would be civilized.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Paris

**Author's Note:**

> This is the fourth in my postcards series. If you haven't read the others, this one won't make much sense. 
> 
> Warning for bad words in a foreign language. Translations for the French are provided at the end. (Warning: that translation will include swearing.)

"I suppose that's why I like puzzles. Generally, they're things you can do on your own."

"But you don't have to anymore," Camille had said. "You have me."

Except, he didn't. And puzzles just weren't the same anymore without her.

In addition to all the technological whistles and bells that MI6 could provide, Richard set up a white board beside his desk and updated it regularly as he worked. He stayed late, after most of the others had left, so he could talk through the details out loud, as though his old team were still around him. He tried to imagine how Camille would see things, and forcing that shift in perspective helped a little. Richard made enough progress to earn the respect of his new colleagues. But it wasn't enough.

So when he heard the first rumour about expanding the team and inter-agency cooperation, Richard booked an appointment with his supervisor and dropped Camille's dossier on her desk.

"We need her," he said. "She can do the undercover work that I can't. And we get results as a team."

He never expected it to work, but he had to ask. Being stuck in this twilight life would be bearable if she were here, too. If only to give him someone to argue with. And together they could break the case. He was sure of it. They always had before.

And, some combination of Camille's experience, their case closure rate as a team, and a healthy dose of bitter jurisdictional politics proved to be magic. His supervisor came to tell him that Camille was under consideration for a position on the new task force. But she wouldn't tell him anything more.

When Richard got home that night, he addressed the postcard he had bought so many months ago and dropped it in the mail without letting himself think too much about it.

** **

When Camille stepped out of the airport, the air was full of memories. Cooler, drier, crisper, it smelled like Paris, like her 20s, like old friends and late nights and hard work.

She'd barely slept her last night on the island and hadn't slept at all on the plane – the butterflies in her stomach kept her awake and fidgeting – so she splurged on a taxi rather than wrestle her bags onto the metro. The DGSE maintained several furnished flats for agents temporarily assigned to the city and they had allocated one to her until she could make other arrangements. The address they provided was a small studio on the fifth floor of a nondescript building somewhere between Belleville and the Canal Saint Martin. The metro rattled by above ground in the street outside, but on the plus side there was a stop at either end of her street and a grocery store on the corner. It was basic and convenient, and she didn't figure she'd be home that much, anyway.

** **

The outcome of the jurisdictional infighting dictated that the new task force be based in Paris. Richard accepted the news that he was being transferred to France with as much good grace as he could muster. At least the weather would be civilized.

He packed the few belongings he had in his impersonal flat and boarded the Eurostar at St. Pancras station still not knowing whether Camille had been hired or not. What if she didn't come? What if he ended up in yet another new country all by himself, having to start over with a new team? He shook himself. It didn't bear thinking about.

He tried to distract himself from the butterflies in his stomach - he hadn't ever been through the chunnel before, though he'd read a great deal about it - and he tried to work up an attempt at excitement and curiosity, but in the end, the chunnel was just twenty minutes of blackness outside the train windows.

** **

Camille's first week in Paris passed in a whirl of new-job orientation. Filling out forms. Testing. Training. Re-certification at the range. Security clearance.

She met up with Charles again for drinks. He introduced her to a few of his friends. She reconnected with old acquaintances. She went shopping for more suitable clothes. Only late at night, alone in an apartment that wasn't hers, was the homesickness able to creep in.

At the end of the first week, M. Brand called her into his office.

"The British analyst will be here on Monday. He'll bring you up to speed and then you two will take point on this investigation. _You're_ the undercover operative on this team, so try to keep him out of the field. The Brits say he's a bit odd."

"Yes, sir."

Camille wasn't sure whether the churning in her stomach was hope or dread. She filled all the hours of her weekend with errands and tasks so she wouldn't have to think about it.

At work on Monday morning, Camille's hands shook so badly she almost couldn't use them. It took all the control she had to maintain a calm exterior as she crossed the building to the conference room to meet her new colleague.

And this time, it _was_ Richard. He was standing right there, under the watchful eyes of a junior agent, looking concerned and uncomfortable. Exactly as usual. As though nothing had ever happened. Camille thought for a moment she might burst out laughing and was terrified that if she did she wouldn't be able to stop.

** **

Richard hardly recognised Camille when she stepped into the room. All her wild hair had been straightened and tamed. She wore a suit jacket and skirt and ridiculously high heels. If it hadn't been for the vibrant yellow colour of her blouse he wouldn't have believed it was her at all.

Beneath the jacket, beneath the blouse, her shoulders were set in a rigid line. Her whole body was braced for confrontation. Richard could tell already this reunion was not going to go well.

"Sir, I'd like to introduce you to the representative from the French team. She has extensive undercover experience, and will be the legs of the Paris operation, so to speak." The young agent laughed at his own feeble joke. Richard did not.

The agent droned on through the unnecessary introductions, and the longer Camille held herself still and silent, the tighter the knot in Richard's stomach drew.

Finally, mercifully, the chill in the room penetrated even the agent's thick skin, and he stuttered to a stop. "I'll leave you two to get acquainted then, shall I?" He glanced from one to the other. "Yes. Yes. Good."

And he fled.

The silence stretched, and Richard's nerves with it. Camille just stared at him. Richard forced himself not to fidget. She wasn't shy, for God's sake, why didn't she _say_ something. She _had_ to say something. Richard couldn't stand the silence. And if she left it to him, it was going to be...

"What on earth have you done to your hair?"

Camille's eyebrows shot up. And all of a sudden the careful blank expression was gone and her face was tight with fury. Richard flinched.

** **

"Really. You staged your own death, let your friends find your body, made us investigate your murder, tortured me with cryptic postcards followed by _months_ of silence, and after all this time you want to know about my _hair_?" Anger crashed through Camille with a force that shook her like a rag doll. It knocked loose all the words inside her, and they fell out of her mouth on a torrent of adrenaline until even she didn't know what she was saying. _"Putain de merde_. _Vous avez le culot, quand même."_

** **

Richard didn't think Camille was even aware she had lapsed into French. And he didn't really mind. So long as she was here, in the same room with him, she could yell at him in whatever language she wanted.

_"Et puis, q'est-ce-que vous foutez là? Vous êtes con, ou quoi?"_

Camille lost that frightening stillness as her anger warmed, and she started to pace in short arcs, toward him and away.

" _Vous vous emmêlez dans des affaires comme ça, quand vous n'en savez rien des dangers? Une petite femme jolie avait besoin de votre aide, c'est ça? Et d'une minute á l'autre, vous avez tout abandonné. L'équippe. L'île. Moi."_ She turned to face him, and Richard couldn't quite read her expression. _"Sans rien me dire!"_

** **

Camille stared at him, and all she could see was the blood and the stillness and the pallor. Her heart hammered against her ribs. She couldn't breathe.

_"J'ai dû vous voir..._ "

She tried to force the words out, but her throat closed against them.

** **

Camille broke off her rant mid-sentence and just stared at him. Richard fought to understand the words she'd said. He knew they came right from her heart and he knew he'd never be able to get her to repeat herself in English.

He was so fixated on her face, on trying to read every nuance, that he startled when she moved. She stalked across the room toward him, her high heels snapping out the rhythm of her fury. Richard braced himself, unsure whether to expect a slap or a punch. A punch seemed more her style. And Lord knew he deserved it.

He stiffened in surprise when she flung her arms around him instead and held on with force enough to smother him. With the length of her pressed against him, he could feel her body shaking. His arms closed around her back in comfort before his brain could get in the way. And once he was holding her, all the awkwardness and stammering in the world couldn't make him let go.

" _Je t'ai vu..._ " Camille's voice cracked again on the words. She forced the rest out in a whisper. " _Comment t'as pu me faire ça?"_

"I'm so sorry, Camille."

Camille shook her head against his shoulder, mute now.

"I begged them to tell you from the beginning, but they were worried for your life."

Camille sucked in a deep breath. Richard could feel it shudder through her. Finally, she pulled back.

Richard let her go.

Camille took a moment to compose herself and then pinned him with a glare. "You are not forgiven."

"No. No. Of course."

"Just so it's clear."

"Perfectly."

She nodded. "And you don't like my hair."

Richard sighed, frustrated. He wasn't ever going to hear the end of this one. "You don't look like you."

Camille raised an eyebrow. "I'm undercover."

"You were undercover when I met you, but you still had," Richard gestured a vague cloud around his head, "the hair."

"I was in the Caribbean when you met me. The style is different here."

"You're still _from_ the Caribbean."

Camille rolled her eyes. "Yes, but the point is to go unnoticed."

Richard snorted. "You could never go unnoticed."

The words fell out of his mouth before he realized what he was saying. And in the brief hiccup of silence that followed, he kicked himself all over again. Why did his compliments always have to come out sounding like insults? Why couldn't he just talk to her like a normal human being?

"Well, thank you for that vote of confidence, sir," Camille said. But her lips twitched with the smile she was trying to hide.

"I'm not forgiven for that either, am I?"

"Oh no."

He nodded, trying to hide his own smile now. "I trust you're keeping score?"

"You have no idea."

"Right. Excellent." Richard knew he had lost the battle with his face and suspected he was grinning like an idiot. " _Alors..._ " He tried out his new skill. " _Au travail_?"

Camille started to laugh. And if it was a little watery around the edges, Richard pretended not to notice.

"I can't wait," she said.

**Author's Note:**

> Camille says:
> 
> * Putain de merde. Vous avez le culot, quand même. = Fucking hell. You've got some gall, though.
> 
> * Et puis, q'est-ce-que vous foutez là? Vous êtes con, ou quoi? = And, what the hell are you doing here? Are you a complete idiot?
> 
> * Vous vous emmêlez dans des affaires comme ça, quand vous n'en savez rien des dangers? Une petite femme jolie avait besoin de votre aide, c'est ça? Et d'une minute á l'autre, vous avez tout abandonné. L'équippe. L'île. Moi. = You went and got yourself tangled up in affairs like this without knowing any of the dangers? A pretty little lady needed your help, is that it? And from one minute to the next you abandoned everything. The team. The island. Me.
> 
> * Sans rien me dire! = Without even telling me!
> 
> * J'ai dû vous voir... = I had to see...
> 
> * Je t'ai vu... = I saw you...
> 
> * Comment t'as pu me faire ça? = How could you do that to me?
> 
> Richard says:
> 
> * Alors... Au travail? = So... to work?
> 
> I say:
> 
> Thank you very much to everyone for leaving such kind comments. I've really had a wonderful time writing and posting these. This is going to be the last of the stories for a while - the day job gets nutty for the next couple of months and I don't want to leave anyone hanging. This was originally intended to be the end of the series, but I have a few ideas I'd like to kick around about what happens next. So there may be another story or two eventually.


End file.
